Business/Financial Desk

With a speech in New York yesterday at the start of a costly and quirky marketing campaign, Samuel J. Palmisano, I.B.M.'s chief executive, declared his company was making a $10-billion bet on a strategic shift toward what it calls ''on-demand computing.''

October 31, 2002technologyNews

Business/Financial Desk

The resignation of Louis V. Gerstner Jr., a man with a large presence, as chief executive of I.B.M. paves the way for the ascension of Samuel J. Palmisano, one of Mr. Gerstner's most loyal executives yet someone expected to display a markedly different leadership style. Mr. Palmisano, 50, who joined the company in 1973 and rose to become president and chief operating officer in 2000, is known as a highly personable executive with a knack for execution and the ability to integrate I.B.M.'s global businesses.

I.B.M. is a corporate pioneer in globalization, but the company's success has not meant more jobs in the United States. Its experience holds lessons for the American economy, corporations and workers. "You can't be in the commodity space, says Sam...